Some medical imaging systems track the position of a probe, such as a catheter, which is fitted with a position sensor and an ultrasonic transducer. The position measurements of the probe, coupled with the images produced by the ultrasonic transducer, are used for imaging and/or modeling of a target organ. An exemplary system of this sort is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0241445, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference.
Several methods and systems are known in the art for calibrating probes that include ultrasound transducers and position sensors. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0254458, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes an apparatus for calibrating a probe comprising an ultrasonic transducer and a position measurement device. The apparatus includes a test fixture comprising an ultrasonic target that is disposed therein at a known position. A processor receives a position signal from the position sensor while the transducer aligned to the ultrasonic target determines the orientation of the probe in the frame of reference of the test fixture. The processor determines the calibrated data of the probe related to the orientation.
Additional methods and systems for calibrating ultrasound and position tracking probes are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,192,735, 6,517,484 and 6,585,651, whose disclosures is incorporated herein by reference.